by Julia Alvarez
age: adult

Look, a non-Cybil’s book! (And an adult one at that!) I’ve been reading this at nights (by eliminating my TV watching — only one hour of the John Adams miniseries and a 1/2 hour 30 Rock this week…) for my on-line book group. It wasn’t earth shattering, but I did like parts of it.

The four Garcia girls are the daughters and granddaughters of a fairly powerful clan in the Dominican Republic. However, their father, Carlos, was involved in a plot to overthrow the dictator Trujillo, they have to flee to the United States. There, they try to adjust: Papi finding new patients, Mami taking the lead because she went to school in America for a few years. The girls — Carla, Sandi, Yolanda and Sofia — each make their own way, for better or for worse.

The real “gimmick” of this book is that it’s told backwards. You find out how the girls fared, before you find out how they got to where they ended up. It worked for me, at times, but I think, ultimately, it was more confusing than intriguing. I kept having to flip back to figure out which girl ended up which way (the copy I read had notes in the margins just for that purpose; initially, I was annoyed, but by the end, I was grateful). I think I would have rather a story told with flashbacks to their Dominican childhood.

There was much good about the book, though, especially when it addressed the immigrant experience. Alvarez captured both the initial intrigue of the unknown (near the end of the book, the children would long for the new and unexpected and fascinating things brought back for them from the States) to the challenging and finally accepting of their new culture. I enjoyed some of the individual stories, too, from the descriptions of the compound in the Dominican Republic, to the experiences of each of the girls.

In the end, though the thing that struck me most was that Alvarez writes with honesty and with love for the characters and both their countries. The book made me think about all the immigrant experiences, and the challenges they face when they arrive in a new country. Which is something worth thinking about.